Samaritan has burning desire to make world a better place

Hannah Boquet has spent much of her tenure at Destrehan High School helping others. And as she and her senior classmates move out into the world following graduation, she hopes to lend an even greater helping hand going forward.

After finding her introduction to service through her church and school extracurricular activities while she attended middle school, Boquet developed a burning desire to make the world a better place, particularly for the less fortunate.

 “I remember when I’d go with my church to New Orleans and we’d distributing coats to the homeless there,” Boquet recalled. “I really just saw people (who received aid), got to meet with them and talked to them for a long time.

“And the thing that stuck with me was that I really felt there was no reason those people shouldn’t be getting help, because they really need it. I wanted to be a part of that cause.”

So much so that she plans on making a career out of it. Boquet will attend Louisiana Scholars College  and Northwestern State University as she pursues two degrees. At LSC, she will study humanities and social thought, while at Northwestern State, she seeks a degree in social work. She’s planned beyond that as well, eying the University of Memphis to earn a master’s degree in nonprofit management.

While Boquet knew she loved philanthropy, she didn’t feel completely secure at first that it could be a realistic career choice for her. That changed after a visit to Fiji, where she met with a number of community leaders who worked in the nonprofit realm year-round.

“When I went there, I saw that this was a career,” she said. “I could continue doing what I love to do and still live a sustainable life. It was really so interesting to me.”

She’s certainly already shown commitment to the cause. She raised over $5,000 to go on that trip to Fiji, going to many of its poorest areas and teaching English to those needing to learn the language. And before her first taste of college life, she will be visiting Washington D.C. this summer, where she will work with a group teaching English to refugees — she elected to not go on her senior trip to do so. She said the D.C. trip will be two to three weeks learning how to help refugees adjust to life in America.

She also said the trip could further crystallize her upcoming plans.

“The biggest thing for me is we get to meet with the international rescue committee,” Boquet said.  “That might be something that might become my end goal. We’re going to dive into the whole relationship of what our country does for our people and people across the world and also how the business of it all works.”

That behind the scenes business is something she hasn’t experienced before.

“I’ve always been the one doing the hands on work,” she said. “I want to eventually be able to bring more people together to work with these kinds of organizations. Strength comes in numbers.”

She said her charity work does take up the majority of her free time.

ut Boquet was able to enjoy her time inside the Destrehan walls, and says she’ll particularly miss the bond she shared with her fellow Honors program students.

“We’ve formed a really tight family,” she said. “It’s been the same 20 of us over the past four years. We’re all really supportive of each other in all of our career dreams and really help each other to reach our goals.”

 

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